Dan Davidson’s bees are dying, and by the thousands.“I was hoping this wouldn’t happen again this year,” said Davidson, a farmer near London, Ont. “But it is and we can’t do anything. The pesticide is so widespread … the bees can’t escape it.”The “it” he’s talking about is a group of insecticides known as neonicotinoids. These insect neurotoxins are wide used in agriculture — and have been linked to the decline of...

Environmental activism has come of age. As recently as twenty-five years ago, its adherents were commonly disparaged as tree huggers and extremists. In the years since, thanks mostly to such disasters as the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills, they have outgrown these pejoratives—in the eyes of reasonable people, at least. A turning point was Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which for millions of viewers settled the debate on climate change.Greenpeace...

As the narrow window closes on the opportunity to voice concerns about the reversal of a pipeline that could transport diluted bitumen across Ontario – including through major urban centres such as Toronto – some people living near the conduit are taking it upon themselves to alert others to the potential hazards. One of them is Jan Morrissey, a Toronto woman who is frustrated with the lack of clear information provided about the Line 9B reversal by either Enbridge Inc., the...

Reliable natural gas service in Ontario could be affected by TransCanada Corp.’s plans to convert its main gas pipeline to carry oil, says Enbridge Gas Distribution.In a letter to the Ontario Energy Board, Enbridge says it needs prompt approval of a $600 million pipeline project of its own in Greater Toronto to keep gas flowing to Ontario customers.“The timely decision for the GTA project is critical,” writes Enbridge senior manager Edith Chin, who wants approval by September....

Research is questioning the logic behind the federal government's move to streamline environmental assessments.After tracking thousands of assessments over a decade, the peer-reviewed findings of Derrick de Kerckhove suggest a great majority of Fisheries Act environmental reviews over the last decade were completed well within recommended timelines.Nor was there a bottleneck of projects being held up by a clogged review process, he said."We didn't find any. Even when the input was...

Environment Canada, not Sustainable Prosperity, to take over research dataThe people who are winding down the controversial National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy say Environment Minister Peter Kent has nixed their plan to keep all their research public.The government pulled funding from the roundtable a year ago, giving the advisory body until this Friday to shut down.Acting chairman Robert Slater says the group had planned to hand over 25 years of research and analysis to...

A Thunder Bay city councillor wants environmental groups to take over the Experimental Lakes Area — but one of the groups he's named is throwing cold water on the idea.Federal government support for the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario is set to expire by the end of the month and there's been no announcement of any deal for another operator to take over the project.Thunder Bay councillor Larry Hebert said it's time for groups such as Greenpeace or the Sierra...

Sickness being attributed to wind turbines is more likely to have been caused by people getting alarmed at the health warnings circulated by activists, an Australian study has found.Complaints of illness were far more prevalent in communities targeted by anti-windfarm groups, said the report's author, Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University. His report concludes that illnesses being blamed on windfarms are more than likely caused by the psychological effect of...